When producers started adapting James Cameron's “True Lies” for television, they understood why it hadn’t been done sooner.
“True action-comedy is mainly a movie genre,” says Executive Producer Matt Nix. “You find a few action shows with comedy elements but you’ve got to have a real case. You’ve got to do all the things a regular spy show would do and then you’ve got to do all the things that a family drama would do. It’s a balance.”
To help find that, Nix hired “Shameless” star Steve Howey to play the Arnold Schwarzenegger role, Ginger Gonzaga to play the Jamie Lee Curtis role. Neither actor wanted to do an impression.
“Even before the pilot, I committed to not watching it because I know Jamie Lee has an iconic performance,” Gonzaga says.
Howey stayed away from an Arnold impersonation because “he’s an iconic actor, an iconic man in an iconic film.”
Because so many years had passed since the film was released (it came out in 1994), society has evolved, Gonzaga says. “The actors are going to be different and so we’re lucky in that way. It really makes it easy to be this fresh, new thing.”
In the CBS series, Gonzaga plays a language professor who discovers her ordinary husband is really an international spy. His company recruits her and, soon, the two are globetrotting on covert missions.
Naturally, that means plenty of action scenes. Gonzaga studied parkour (with a class of 14-year-olds); Howey relied on his fighting skills.
“He learns fight choreography like a Lady Gaga dancer,” Gonzaga says. “That’s not something I had, but you have to stay physically strong for this.”
During a fight scene, Howey hurt his back and pulled his left quadriceps. During another, he snapped his finger.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done and, at the same time, a lot of fun,” Howey says.
When he was on “Shameless,” Howey wasn’t the lead. On “True Lies,” he is.
“It was a leap,” Howey says. “I told Ginger, the great thing about us is that we get to exchange the responsibility of being the straight man, straight woman, straight actor.
“I just wanted to take care of the cast and, lucky enough, they cast amazing actors and amazing people. It helped that we had this synergy among us because those difficult days of working all day, beating our bodies up and then coming to work the next day, it was a lot easier because of the support.”
Howey took his 13-year-old son to a screening of the show’s pilot and “he was very complimentary. He said, ‘You’re a good dad on the show. It’s probably because of us that you’re so natural at being a good dad.’”
Annabella Didion, who plays the couple's daughter, says both actors have taught her so much about acting. “At times, they really don’t have to say anything,” she says.
Gonzaga, according to Lucas Jaye, who plays their son, “lifts the mood. I can feel the mom energy just kind of radiating off of her.”
And when the two leads are improvising, “it’s hard to stay in character,” he says. “They’re so funny.”
“True Lies” airs on CBS.
